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A good deal that was likely to mortify Valentine followed
this, but it was no more than he deserved.

John laughed. “Well, Giles is a dear fellow,”
he said, throwing down the paper. “I am
pleased at his marriage, and they must submit to be
laughed at like other people.”

CHAPTER XVI.

WEARING THE WILLOW.

“My Lord Sebastian,
The truth you speak
doth lack some gentleness
And time to speak it
in; you rub the sore
When you should bring
the plaster.”

The Tempest.

When John Mortimer reached the banking-house next
morning, he found Valentine waiting for him in his
private sitting-room.

“I thought my uncle would hardly be coming so
early, John,” he said, “and that perhaps
you would spare me a few minutes to talk things over.”

“To be sure,” said John, and looking more
directly at Valentine, he noticed an air of depression
and gloom which seemed rather too deep to be laid
to the account of the True Blue.

He was stooping as he sat, and slightly swinging his
hat by the brim between his knees. He had reddened
at first, with a sullen and half-defiant expression,
but this soon faded, and, biting his lips, he brought
himself with evident effort to say—­

“No, I devoutly hope you have not,” exclaimed
John, to whom the unlucky situation became evident
in an instant.

“Grand always has done me the justice to take
my part as regards my conduct about this hateful second
engagement. He always knew that I would have
married poor Lucy if they would have let me—­married
her and made the best of my frightful, shameful mistake.
But as you know, Mrs. Nelson, Lucy’s mother,
made me return her letters a month ago, and said it
must be broken off, unless I would let it go dragging
on and on for two years at least, and that was impossible,
you know, John, because—­because, I so soon
found out what I’d done.”

“Wait a minute, my dear fellow,” John
interrupted hastily, “you have said nothing
yet but what expresses very natural feelings.
I remark, in reply, that your regret at what you have
long seen to be unworthy conduct need no longer disturb
you on the lady’s account, she having now married
somebody else.”

“Yes,” said Valentine, sighing restlessly.

“And,” John went on, looking intently
at him, “on your own account I think you need
not at all regret that you had no chance of going and
humbly offering yourself to her again, for I feel certain
that she would have considered it insulting her to
suppose she could possibly overlook such a slight.
Let me speak plainly, and say that she could have
regarded such a thing in no other light.”

Then, giving him time to think over these words, which
evidently impressed him, John presently went on, “It
would be ridiculous, however, now, for Dorothea to
resent your former conduct, or St. George either.
Of course they will be quite friendly towards you,
and you may depend upon it that all this will very
soon appear as natural as possible; you’ll soon
forget your former relation towards your brother’s
wife; in fact you must.”